Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1902 — LEST THEY FORGET. [ARTICLE]

LEST THEY FORGET.

We would respectfully call the attention of the editors of all the republican papers of Jasper county, including the Barnacle and Remington Press, to the fact that the county commissioners at their May term allowed the claim of The Democrat editor for erroneous taxes, assessed in 1898 against him by one H. B. Murray, then county auditor, without authority of law and in defiance of the evidence before him. This was done in revenge for The Democrat’s having exposed his mutilation of the public records in his possesssion, and Honest Abe and the since retired to private life Gwin were prime factors in the scheme. Gwin, as county treasurer, refused to accept the tax from us under protest, but in March of this year we went in and paid the tax to Treasurer Parkinson, and as was his duty when so requested, he wrote the receipt “paid under protest.” Then we filed a claim before the commissioners to have the tax refunded, as it was erroneous and assessed without authority of law. The case was a very plain one, but the commissioners continued it “to get a written opinion” regarding the allowance of it. Their attorneys, Foltz, Spitler & Kurrie, in their opinion, entered into the case pretty thoroughly and showed that all the higher court authorities were on our side, and advised that it be paid. In spite of this opinion, which no doubt cost Jasper county as much as the amount involved, Abe wanted to “continue it until the next term to get an opinion from the AttorneyGeneral,” a mere subterfuge for delay. We insisted on its allowance or dismissal, and finally Abe’s colleagues, not caring to risk a lawsuit on so plain a case, allowed the claim, and Abe and the rest of the gang have been weeping tears of rage and mortification since. The above little case of “spite,” all through, has cost Jasper county taxpayers over SIOO, and there was not a solitary vestige of law or evidence to justify the. action of the gang at any time. This tax would never have been refunded to us if it had not have been a ground hog case. The attorneys and the commissioners saw that it HAD to be done, and in view of the costly litigation they have heretofore involved the county in, to get even with The Democrat for exposing their rotteness, only to lose out in the end, they didn’t care to take the responsibility of facing another suit at this time that was sure to result the same way. This matter and the result in other cases which The Democrat man has been forced into during the four years he has been here, ought to convince any fair minded man that we have been right every time, and that the other fellows have been completely knocked out at every turn of the box. We hope our local contemporaries will not forget to mention this, the final adjudication of this tax matter, as they have in the past few years used many columns of “valuable space” in holding up The Democrat man as a tax-dodg-er. Don’t forget it, boys.